Science

Tags:

NASA’s ICESat-2 Measures Arctic Ocean’s Sea Ice Thickness, Snow Cover

seaice2019harbeck_0.jpg
Scientists have used NASA's ICESat-2 to measure the thickness of Arctic sea ice, as well as the depth of snow on the ice. Here, ridges and cracks have formed in sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.

Tags:

NASA Satellite Data Show Air Pollution Decreases over Southwest U.S. Cities

On March 19, California was one of the first states to set mandatory stay-at-home restrictions in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19. Arizona and Nevada followed suit around April 1. The Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on board NASA's Aura Satellite provide data that indicate that these restrictions have led to about a 31% decrease in NO2 levels in the Los Angeles basin relative to previous years. NO2, or nitrogen dioxide, is an air pollutant measured by OMI. The estimated reductions for other cities in the Southwest U.S. before and after the quarantine restrictions are 22% for the San Francisco Bay Area, 25% for San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, 16% for Phoenix, and 10% for Las Vegas.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/nasa-satellite-data-show-air-p...

[Image]
The slider above shows satellite estimates of NO2 from Aura’s Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) as an average of March 25 through April 25. The image on the left shows the mean of the 150-day period from 2015 through 2019, while the image on the right shows the mean of the 30-day period for 2020.

Tags:

Delta Scuti stars reveal some of their secrets

beta_Pictoris_credit_ESO_01_0.png
The Delta Scuti-star beta Pictoris.

Tags:

New Comet Discovered by ESA and NASA Solar Observatory

esa_soho_c_2020_f8_swan_24march_to_9may.2020-05-12_16_24_06_0.gif
New Comet Discovered by ESA and NASA Solar Observatory

Tags:

NASA’s TESS Enables Breakthrough Study of Perplexing Stellar Pulsations

radial_cutaway_.gif
Sound waves bouncing around inside a star cause it to expand and contract, which results in detectable brightness changes. This animation depicts one type of Delta Scuti pulsation — called a radial mode — that is driven by waves (blue arrows) traveling between the star’s core and surface. In reality, a star may pulsate in many different modes, creating complicated patterns that enable scientists to learn about its interior.

Tags:

Aeolus goes public

Delivering new information about Earth’s winds, ESA’s Aeolus mission has already been hailed a success. Today, this remarkable satellite mission has yet again achieved new heights: its data are now being distributed publicly to forecasting services and scientific users in less than three hours of measurements being made from space.

Wind_profile_from_Aeolus_6_May_2020_pillars_0.jpg
Understanding Earth’s winds

Tags:

SOFIA Finds Clues Hidden in Pluto’s Haze

occultation_animation_still_0.png
Still image from an animation illustrating Pluto passing in front of a star during an eclipse-like event known as an occultation. SOFIA observed the dwarf planet as it was momentarily backlit by a star on June 29, 2015 to analyze its atmosphere.

Tags:

A bent bridge between two galaxy clusters

A new study, based on data from ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatories, sheds new light on a three million light-year long bridge of hot gas linking two galaxy clusters, whose shape is being bent by the mighty activity of a nearby supermassive black hole.

Bridge_between_galaxy_clusters_in_Abell_2384_annotated_pillars_0.jpg
Bridge between galaxy clusters in Abell 2384 – optical view

Tags:

NASA Airborne Science Interns Gathering Data at Home

sarp_vidad_0.jpg
SARP intern Gabriela Vidad, a physics major from Adelphi University in New York, takes an air sample near her home.

Tags:

Making Skies Safe for Unmanned Aircraft

afrc2019-0142-10_0.jpg
NASA’s UAS Integration in the NAS project, used the Navmar Applied Sciences Corporation’s unmanned TigerShark aircraft for its Flight Test Series Six project. The TigerShark performed a systems checkout flight at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in July 2019.